A Mongrel Mob member has escaped a second preventive detention sentence after bashing a fellow inmate in prison when he was awaiting trial for a machete attack.
Warren Charles Te Hei, 46, appeared before Justice Mark Woolford in the Napier High Court yesterday to be sentenced for an attack in Hawke's Bay Prison that left a man hospitalised and in need of several plates and screws in his head.
He was sentenced to preventive detention in July last year after he attacked a woman with a machete in 2014, and in December it took a jury just 15 minutes to find him guilty of the prison bashing in 2015.
After the verdict was read out it was reported jury members gasped in horror as the Judge told them Te Hei was in jail for the machete attack and had previously served a sentence for attempting to murder a fellow inmate.
Yesterday Crown prosecutor Jo Rielly advocated for a second preventive detention sentence to be imposed on the basis that Te Hei continued to pose a high risk of further offending and was involved with gang warfare.